It has been a long five years since the Broncos last finished with a winning season, after which Gary Kubiak immediately retired from head-coaching duties, although he would later re-emerge as a personnel consultant and later an offensive coordinator in Minnesota.
Five years. Eighty-one games. Fifty-one losses. And quarterback play that, aside from occasional bursts of excellence, vacillated on a range from ordinary to odious.
And it shows in an evaluation of game-by-game passer ratings from starting quarterbacks.
Passer rating, when used across eras, is a flawed metric. But when taken game-by-game over a five-year span, it reveals the depths the Broncos plumbed — and the heights experienced by the Seattle Seahawks — from their quarterback position.
It starts with this: Since 2017, the Broncos are dead last in games from their starting quarterback (minimum 10 attempts) that were in the top 25 percent of single-game passer rating.
Reaching the top 25 percent in that span means having a rating of at least 110.0 (maximum 158.3).
Just eight of 81 games — a paltry 9.9 percent, or one every 10.1 contests — saw a Broncos starting quarterback finish with a top-25-percent passer rating. And even that required a surge — five of those eight performances came in the Broncos’ last 21 games — two from Drew Lock and three from Teddy Bridgewater. (Lock had another top-25-percent game against Houston in 2019, giving him three in 21 starts — a below-average rate of 14.3 percent.)
Meanwhile, the Seahawks — with Wilson — ranked third. Thirty-eight of their 81 games — 46.9 percent — saw top-quarter games from their starting quarterback, with all but one of those 38 belonging to Russell Wilson. (Backup Geno Smith had the other in an Oct. 31, 2021 win over the Jaguars.)
It isn’t much better when looking at games in the the bottom 25 percent — a passer rating of 73.0 or worse. Denver has 27 such games from its quarterbacks since 2007; only the Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, New York Giants, Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns and Jacksonville Jaguars have more. But all had more games in the top-25 percent from their starting quarterbacks.
Meanwhile, such games for Seattle were rare. Just nine games from Wilson in the last five seasons were in the bottom 25 percent of single-game passer-rating fewer.
Only two teams were better — New Orleans and Kansas City. You might know the two quarterbacks primarily responsible: Drew Bree’s and Patrick Mahomes. This serves as a reminder of the company that Wilson keeps.
And when it comes to the difference between performances in the top and bottom 25 percent since 2017, the Seahawks are plus-29 — 38 top-25-percent games, 9 bottom-25-percent days. Only Mahomes and the Chiefs are better, at plus-32.
Denver, as you might expect, was among the worst, at minus-19, tied with the Giants. Only the Jaguars (minus-21) broke their fall.
With one bold trade the Broncos went from a Pluto-like orbit around the solar system to being near the sun. They’re at the core of things now.
And it starts with adding a quarterback whose top-tier performances outnumber his bust days by a 4-to-1 margin.
Wilson will have bad days. But history shows they will be rare.
